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After a long, mostly boring offseason for the Dallas Mavericks, the long wait for live action is almost over. Today, the NBA released the full regular season schedule for the upcoming 2017-18 season. Here is the Mavs’ full schedule and some of the more intriguing games and dates.
Home/Road Openers: Oct. 18 and Oct. 21
The Mavs will open the season at home on Oct. 18 against the Atlanta Hawks. They will open their road schedule at Houston Rockets on Oct. 21 if you want to take a little roadtrip down Interstate-45.
National television Games: six (plus five on NBA TV)
The Mavs will be on national television only six times this season, according to the official schedule. Five of those games will be on ESPN, as they take on the Los Angeles Clippers (Nov. 1), San Antonio Spurs (Dec. 12), Houston Rockets (Jan. 24), Phoenix Suns (Jan. 31) and Los Angeles Lakers (Feb. 23).
The other national tv game will be on TNT when the Mavs take on the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors (Dec. 14).
They’ll also play five games on NBA TV, which sort of counts as national television. Those games are: at San Antonio (Nov. 27) at L.A. Clippers (Feb. 5), at Houston (Feb. 11), at Cleveland (Apr. 1) and at Philadelphia (Apr. 8).
The busiest month is December
Dallas plays 16 games in December, similar to last season, where they competed in 17 games that month. Ten of those 16 games come on the road, including games against Boston, Golden State, San Antonio, Miami, New Orleans and Oklahoma City.
It’s early, but it’s easy to point at that month being a break-or-break one for the team’s playoff hopes.
Mavs won’t be home or away more than four games at a time
The longest homestand for Dallas is four games, something it’ll do twice. Likewise, the longest road trip is also four games and also something that happens twice this season. However, of their final 15 games, 10 come on the road.
There are far fewer back-to-backs.
The NBA completely got rid of four-games-in-five-nights with this schedule, which is somewhat incredible. In the 2014-15 season, the league had 70 instances of that! Just four seasons later, they’re completely gone.
Dallas plays 15 back-to-backs this season, but only four after the All-Star break. Two are home-home back-to-backs, meaning no travel involved.
Get tickets for these home games
The Warriors play in Dallas on Oct. 23 and Jan. 3, while the Cavaliers come Nov. 11. Do you want to see Dennis Smith Jr. vs. Markelle Fultz? That’ll happen Oct. 28. What about Smith vs. Lonzo Ball? The Lakers visit Dallas on Jan. 13 and Feb. 10.